Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus for controlling the execution of print jobs, a method for controlling the printing apparatus, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
Conventional printing apparatuses that control the execution of print job are known. Print jobs include a Page Description Language (PDL) job entered from a client computer that communicates with the printing apparatus via a network. Print jobs further include a copy job of reading an image of a document by using a scanner provided on the printing apparatus and performing printing based on the read image.
In the printing apparatus, a job interruption factor (job interruption event) such as an error may occur during execution of a print job. For example, when the job interruption event occurred is a paper out event, the execution of the print job is interrupted and is not resumed until a user replenishes paper. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-134122 discusses a technique for preferentially executing subsequent jobs if a paper out event occurs.
A specific example will be described below. When A4-size paper (sheet) runs out during execution of a print job (first job) for printing an image on A4-size paper, the print job is interrupted and is not resumed until A4-size paper is replenished. However, when there is a subsequent print job for printing an image on A3-size paper after the first print job and A3-size paper is set in another sheet paper cassette, a printing apparatus executes the second and subsequent print jobs while leaving the execution of the first print job interrupted. This enables preventing the entire processing efficiency from being lowered by the prolongation of downtime of the printing apparatus.
As described above, if a job interruption event occurs during execution of a print job, the entire processing efficiency can be prevented from being lowered by preferentially executing subsequent jobs. However, there may arise another problem that the interrupted print job is left unexecuted for a long time.
More specifically, when A4-size paper runs out during execution of a print job for printing an image on A4-size paper and A4-size paper is not replenished for a long time, the interrupted print job is left unexecuted. It is not desirable from the viewpoint of security that the interrupted print job is left unexecuted for a long time particularly in a case where confidential information is included in the contents to be printed by the print job. Accordingly, it can be considered that, if a job interruption event occurs during execution of a print job, the execution of the print job is automatically canceled.
If a job interruption event occurs during execution of a print job, the printing apparatus may either execute other print jobs while leaving the execution of the interrupted print job or cancel the execution of the print job with which the job interruption event occurred. Which processing is more desirable depends on the environment where the printing apparatus is used. For example, in an environment where security is given priority, it is more desirable to cancel the print job. However, if the print job is canceled, the owner of the canceled print job needs to reenter an instruction for executing the print job, which is troublesome. Therefore, in a certain environment, the owner does not want to cancel the print job. However, conventionally, there has been no consideration about selectively setting whether to, if a job interruption event occurs during execution of a print job, execute other print jobs while leaving the execution of the print job interrupted or cancel the execution of the print job with which the job interruption event occurred.